Some traders count their earnings as they go along the day, or, if you’re like me & don’t wanna be seen with wads of cash outside, you count in the safety of your home. Most times, I can’t wait to find out how well (or sometimes, how little) I did, so I count on the night. My toddler boy being at an age where he wants to ‘help’ with everything, sits down with me & straightens the bent notes flat. He also ‘tries’ to separate the coins in to groups, & if asked, he’ll count them in 10’s so that it’s easier for me to count them. I have pondered if I am making a future bank-clerk out of him (yawn), or indeed the opposite: a bank-robber (unlawful & dangerous), but his nursery teacher said sometime ago how he was good at counting with their plastic coins, so I guess it’s good to let him help me for now.
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Last Saturday night’s conversation with him is gonna be a household classic:

me: “Can you pass me that note please?”

boy: “With the gal?” (note: he can’t say ‘girl’.)
me: (laugh) “Gal…! Yes, with the picture of The Queen of this Country!”

When counting the day’s earnings, now & again, I come across Euro-cents that look like the £1 coin. Soooooo annoying…. This week was a Canadian coin that was the same size as 10 pence coin. Though, I’ve never ever had fake/ counterfeit notes as yet, so I guess I’m one of the lucky ones. A stall near me have just been ‘had’
. with a fake £20 last week – apparently the ‘customer’ bought the cheapest thing on the table with it. Poor guys, a counterfeit note is completely worthless… (Wouldn’t it be great if the Bank of England offered to swap it with a real one when you hand the counterfeit in?)

x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

Last Saturday at the market, the weather turned out well (phew…), & it was absolutely great with the chocolates – I managed to sell out on ALL the truffles – selling all the boxes I had with me (the boxes have 12 truffles inside), while also selling them individually in bags. Although, as per usual with my ever-optimistic (a.k.a. greedy) sales-forecast, I made too many large cakes, over-ly anticipating that people would be kicking-off with the Christmas dinner parties with friends before going off out-of-town to see their folks for the actual Christmas days.

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So… I had quite a bit of cakes left… What with the day getting shorter & getting darker quicker, the market started to look on the emptier side. The passers-bys were just literally ‘passing-by’, not even glancing at the table.

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While I still had items on the table, my D arrives with our boy at 4.30pm (as promised) to pick me up. But our boy is asleep in his arms. Although it was a terrible thing to do, I made them wait in the French cafe opposite, & I announced “DIS—count….!! End-of-the-day-S.A.L.E—!” until I made another few pounds or so, & gave the left-overs to my stall neighbours & friends, & packed-up asap.
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~Still, despite all those left-overs, I managed to make the best earning of this year, so I ain’t complaining. ;-)
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This coming Saturday is hopefully as good, if not better, what with it gonna be on the 22nd, so close to Christmas. I have several orders too. Although…, looking at the weather forecast, it has two rain-drop sign that I dread with hate hate hate, so it’s gonna be a gamble on how many to bake & make. But, I’m again gonna be forecasting optimistically, so am gonna make more, especially the truffles… Call me mad, D does…

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PS: If you’re in Ldn, come & give me support this 22nd! I need it on a rainy day & plus… I’m not quite sure yet, as I haven’t made my decision, but it may be one of the last few times I do the market before taking a long maternity-break!

‘That gal of the country’… priceless… ;D Hope you had a good day at the market, it certainly looked it when I came by! (By the way, the tartlet was excellent – and it kept me from making *too* big a dent in the lemon biscuits I baked for my cousins, which is a very good thing!)

Hi Rachel. Thanks for coming by today – I’m glad you liked the tartlet! I’ve decided I’m not gonna do the market during January, but will be back for the Valentines season (good business for chocolates), so I hope to see you then?
Thank you for being a great customer & blog-reader, & I wish you the very best Christmas! xx

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